What Is a GEO? Gold-Equivalent Ounces Explained
Gold-equivalent ounces (GEOs) explained: the revenue-equivalence formula, why GEO counts shift with metal price ratios, and fixed vs variable conversion.
Educational analysis for professional use. This guide is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security, and it is not personalised.
A GEO Is a Revenue Measure, Not a Weight
A gold-equivalent ounce (GEO) converts everything a company is paid in, silver, copper, platinum group metals, even diamonds, into the number of gold ounces that would have generated the same revenue. It is revenue equivalence dressed up as a production figure. Nobody is melting copper into gold; the company is restating mixed-metal revenue in a single unit so that a polymetallic portfolio can be summarised in one number.
Royalty and streaming companies lean on the metric more than anyone because their portfolios are deliberately diversified across metals. Franco-Nevada collects from gold, silver, copper, and energy assets; Wheaton Precious Metals is roughly half silver by revenue history. Without a common unit, “production” at these companies would be a list, not a number. GEOs make guidance, peer comparison, and per-unit cost analysis possible.
The catch is built into the definition. Because the conversion runs on price ratios, GEO counts move when relative metal prices move, even if physical deliveries are identical. That single property explains most of the confusion around the metric.
The Formula
The conversion is a sum of metal volumes weighted by price ratios against gold:
GEOs = Gold oz + (Silver oz × Ag price ÷ Au price) + (Copper tonnes × Cu price ÷ Au price) + (PGM oz × PGM price ÷ Au price)
Franco-Nevada’s filed definition (FY2025 MD&A, March 2026) is even simpler: non-gold revenue divided by the relevant gold price. The two formulations are the same arithmetic. One detail matters for streamers: stream ounces are measured gross, before the contractual delivery payment, so a GEO of streamed silver is not a GEO of margin. For how the delivery price turns gross ounces into cash flow, see how to value a metal stream.
At the Selborne planning prices, the conversions work out as follows:
| Metal | Planning price | GEO per unit (planning) | One GEO equals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | $3,500/oz | 1.000 per oz | 1 oz gold |
| Silver | $48/oz | 0.0137 per oz | ~73 oz silver |
| Copper | $11,000/t | 3.14 per tonne | ~0.32 t, about 700 lb |
Read those as arithmetic, not as constants. The silver line is just $48 divided by $3,500. Run it on the market prices behind the deck, nearer $4,479 gold and $74 silver, and one GEO is about 60 ounces of silver rather than 73. Companies pick their own conversion prices too, and Wheaton’s 2026 guidance of $4,800/oz gold and $80/oz silver also lands on 60. Same metal, same physical ounces, a different count. That is the metric working as designed, and it is also the problem.
Why GEO Counts Move When Production Doesn’t
The conversion ratio is a price ratio, so a company’s GEO count inflates whenever its by-product metals outperform gold, with no change in physical output.
Wheaton’s own disclosure makes the cleanest worked example, because its conversion prices are filed. Its 2025 actual GEOs used $2,600/oz gold and $30/oz silver, a ratio of about 87 silver ounces per GEO. Its 2026 guidance uses $4,800/oz gold and $80/oz silver, a ratio of 60. Apply both to the same physical silver:
| Conversion deck | Ag/Au ratio | GEOs from 1,000,000 oz silver |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 actuals ($2,600 Au / $30 Ag) | ~86.7 : 1 | 11,538 |
| 2026 guidance ($4,800 Au / $80 Ag) | 60 : 1 | 16,667 |
Identical deliveries, 44% more GEOs. Silver outperformed gold between the two decks, so every silver ounce converts into more “gold”. A silver-heavy streamer can therefore report GEO growth that is partly, or entirely, a price artefact.
The practical rule: before crediting a royalty company with production growth, find the conversion prices in the MD&A and check whether they changed year on year. If they did, part of the “growth” is the ratio, not the mine.
Fixed vs Variable Conversion: The 2026 Split
The two largest names in the sector now answer the ratio problem differently, and from 2026 their GEO counts are no longer constructed the same way.
| Company | Method | 2026 conversion prices | Consequence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Franco-Nevada | Fixed ratios from 2026 reporting | $4,500/oz Au, $75/oz Ag (set from 2026 guidance prices) | GEO counts move only with physical deliveries and revenue mix; year-on-year GEO growth becomes a clean volume signal |
| Wheaton Precious Metals | Variable ratios, reset with each year’s guidance | $4,800/oz Au, $80/oz Ag for 2026 (2025 actuals used $2,600 / $30) | GEO counts still absorb relative price moves between guidance resets |
Sources: FNV FY2025 MD&A (filed 10 March 2026); WPM 2026 guidance release (12 February 2026).
Both 2026 decks happen to land on the same 60:1 silver-to-gold ratio, close to where the metals have been trading, so the two methodologies line up this year. The divergence appears later: if the silver-gold ratio moves and Wheaton resets while Franco-Nevada holds, the same physical portfolio would produce drifting GEO counts at one company and stable counts at the other. Multi-year GEO growth rates across the two names will quietly stop being comparable.
Neither method is wrong. Fixed ratios give a cleaner volume trend; variable ratios keep the GEO count closer to actual revenue equivalence. You just need to know which one you are reading.
Sold, Produced, Earned: The Peer Table
GEO figures across the peer group do not even share a verb, and the differences are material. Here is the verified FY2025 set:
| Company | Ticker | FY2025 GEOs | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wheaton Precious Metals | WPM | 689,864 | Produced |
| Franco-Nevada | FNV | 519,106 | Sold |
| Royal Gold | RGLD | 300,300 | Reported |
| Triple Flag Precious Metals | TFPM | 113,237 | Sold |
| OR Royalties | OR | 80,775 | Earned |
Source: FY2025 company filings and results releases.
Produced ounces lead sold ounces by a delivery lag, sometimes a meaningful one, so dividing revenue by produced GEOs and calling it realised price per ounce will mislead. The same goes for any per-GEO cost or valuation ratio: keep numerator and denominator on the same basis.
Guidance perimeters differ too. Wheaton guides to 860,000-940,000 GEOs for 2026, including roughly 70,000 incremental ounces from the Antamina silver stream completed on 1 April 2026. That midpoint sits about 30% above its FY2025 689,864, which sounds like a production surge. Check the conversion prices, though, and most of that step is the move from 86.7:1 to 60:1 on silver plus the Antamina ounces, not new metal from the mines Wheaton already owned. Franco-Nevada guides to 510,000-570,000 GEOs, excluding Cobre Panama entirely while the mine remains shut. A naive comparison of the two guidance midpoints is comparing different conversion methods and different asset perimeters at once.
What Analysts Actually Do With GEOs
GEOs exist mainly to feed per-unit ratios.
- EV/GEO is enterprise value per annual gold-equivalent ounce, the sector’s usual production-based valuation screen. On 9 June 2026 market caps, seniors cluster around $75,000-80,000 per trailing GEO; Wheaton screens nearer $60,000 on its 2026 guidance midpoint. Accretion mechanics and why the multiple is not a size ladder are in the EV/GEO guide.
- G&A per GEO measures how far a head office is spread. Franco-Nevada and Wheaton both ran near $70 on FY2025 ounces; thin portfolios on small GEO bases run several times that, which is the biggest leak in the sector’s famous margin advantage. Watch the denominator, though: lift the conversion prices and G&A per GEO falls on its own, with nothing cut.
- Stream margin per GEO: spot minus contractual delivery price minus overhead. Step-by-step in how to value a metal stream.
Each ratio inherits every caveat above. A GEO denominator built on last year’s price deck, or on produced rather than sold ounces, quietly changes the answer.
Before You Compare GEO Counts
A headline GEO figure is rarely comparable on its own. Wheaton and Franco-Nevada may both imply a 60:1 silver ratio in 2026, but Wheaton’s resets with guidance while Franco-Nevada’s is now fixed; produced, sold, and earned ounces diverge by a delivery lag; and 2026 guidance already embeds different asset perimeters (Antamina in at Wheaton, Cobre Panama out at Franco-Nevada). Match conversion deck, verb, and perimeter before ranking peers. For how GEOs flow through the royalty and streaming business models into a full portfolio valuation, the Royalty & Streaming Sector Primer builds the complete framework, GEO conversion through to sum-of-parts NAV.
Royalty & Streaming Sector Primer
Converting silver and copper into gold ounces is one price ratio. The primer takes that count through to two portfolio NAVs.
The Excel model is the primer's two NAVs live across 10 sheets: change the gold price, delivery percentage or discount rate and the valuation moves.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is a gold-equivalent ounce (GEO)?
- A gold-equivalent ounce expresses all of a company's metal revenue as the number of gold ounces that would have generated the same revenue. Silver, copper, and PGM volumes are converted using the ratio of each metal's price to the gold price, then added to actual gold ounces. It is a revenue-equivalence measure, not a physical weight.
- How do you calculate gold-equivalent ounces?
- GEOs = gold ounces + (silver ounces × silver price ÷ gold price) + (copper tonnes × copper price ÷ gold price), with the same treatment for any other metal, as long as each volume and its price share a unit. Franco-Nevada's filed definition is simply non-gold revenue divided by the gold price. At Wheaton's 2026 guidance prices of US$4,800/oz gold and US$80/oz silver, 60 ounces of silver convert to one GEO.
- Why do GEO numbers change when production is flat?
- Because the conversion ratio is a price ratio. If silver outperforms gold, every silver ounce converts into more GEOs, so a silver-heavy company reports GEO growth on flat physical deliveries. One million silver ounces were worth 11,538 GEOs at Wheaton's 2025 actual prices ($2,600 gold, $30 silver) but 16,667 GEOs at its 2026 guidance prices ($4,800 gold, $80 silver), a 44% rise with no extra metal.
- What is the difference between fixed and variable GEO conversion?
- Beginning with 2026 reporting, Franco-Nevada fixes its conversion ratios at its 2026 guidance prices ($4,500/oz gold, $75/oz silver), so its GEO counts move only with physical deliveries and revenue mix. Wheaton keeps variable ratios that reset with each year's guidance ($4,800/oz gold, $80/oz silver for 2026), so its GEO counts still absorb relative price moves between resets.
- Can you compare royalty companies directly on reported GEOs?
- Only with care. The basis differs across the peer group: Franco-Nevada reports GEOs sold, Wheaton reports GEOs produced, OR Royalties reports GEOs earned, and each may use different conversion prices. Produced ounces lead sold ounces by a delivery lag, and a different gold price assumption changes the count itself. Check the conversion prices and the verb in the MD&A before ranking peers.